Enormous bowls of sugar-coated cereal, larger-than-life burgers: junk food advertising is out of proportion, a University of Waikato researcher says, and shouldn’t target children on their way to and from school.
New research from junk food marketing expert Dr Victoria Egli has found that 172 advertisements on bus shelters near Auckland schools showed food and drink in portion sizes that exceed those deemed appropriate for children in the national nutrition guidelines.
Dr Egli is calling for greater and enforced regulations to protect kids from unhealthy food marketing, particularly at bus stops near schools.
“Stricter advertising policies with revised definitions are needed to improve these food environments,” she says.
Dr Egli and colleagues from the University of Auckland developed a tool with images from Google Street View to evaluate the portion sizes of food and beverages shown in food advertising on bus stops throughout Auckland.
Dr Victoria Egli is calling for greater and enforced regulations to protect kids from unhealthy food marketing.
The Portion size Estimation in Advertising Reckoner (PEAR) Tool analysed the images taken from Google Street View, comparing them to a database of food and beverage product information including the recommended portion sizes for a range of child age brackets.
All bar one food image exceeded the recommended portion size for children.
Dr Egli said removing unhealthy food and drink advertising targeted at children in public spaces provides an opportunity to enrich those spaces with things that promote health and wellbeing instead.
“It creates an opportunity for communities and schools to come together to decide what they want in their neighbourhoods instead. How cool would it be if on the front of the bus stops, we had local artwork from kids, or advertisements that were promoting community events?”
Dr Egli is focused on children's nutritional health and how their environment impacts on their health outcomes and says the normalising of consumption of extra-large portions has been going on for a long time.
“They're advertising these really big portions of super-sized drinks and extra-large value meals that are harmful for our kids,” she says.
If the Government isn’t interested in banning all junk food marketing to kids, then Dr Egli would like to see only realistic life-size portion sizes for children used.
“That would mean no more pictures of giant quadruple sized burgers, and maybe a section or a sliver of that instead.”
In South Korea there is a $10,000 minimum fine for displaying or broadcasting unhealthy food and beverages. The implications of an unhealthy diet are well documented.
"If a child is getting all these messages all the time that consuming XL portions is normal then that's a that's a dietary pattern that is likely to continue into adulthood.”
The PEAR tool is available to be used in other towns and cities; Dr Egli is happy to be contacted by people who would like to know more.
